280 ELECTRAFIXION, MARION, Reverb, Gloucester Guildhall Arts Centre, Saturday 19 November 1994

For this eagerly awaited "Return Of The Mac", I was on my own, having a good run (3/4 hour) to Gloucester, and parking up in St. Michael's Car Park while some louts were smashing up the nearby phone boxes! Needless to say, I made a check on the car during the evening!

Reverb, a local (Cheltenham) band, came on at 1/4 to 9 and kicked off with their best number, the slightly-delic guitar noise of the aptly-named "Swirl". Their ensuing set was a very enjoyable romp through their record collection, taking in shades of the Wedding Present's choppy guitar attack, Husker Du's popcore and The Jam's modish push'n'shove delivery along the way. Good stuff! Better yet was to come, however, as tour support Marion burst onto the stage, impressing and exciting both myself and most of the packed crowd of Indie kids and old Bunnyfans with an edgy, insistent and urgent set, not unlike the early Wonderstuff crossed with Sweet Jesus! Jamie, their young pretty boy vocalist, can certainly hold a tune, and, furthermore, their songs have a definite driving, sinister "edge" which usually denotes a great band. Their debut single "Sleep", tremendous tonight, is out in January; definitely one to hunt down!

The witching hour arrived; 10.30, and dry ice enveloped the darkened stage, heralding the entrance of Electrafixion, former Echo And the Bunnymen vocalist Ian McCulloch's new band, incorporating fellow former Bunnyman Will Sergeant, plus a couple of spritely young pups. Their set was excellent; typical Bunnymen imagery and characteristics such as strong strident vocals, brain hugging tunes and a fair amount of light and shade style song construction, only this time married to Sugar-esque loud, fierce and driving guitar work. Mac, older, wiser and less fluffy of hair, was no less a star; shooting out the lights with his fingers, asking, "any Scousers here?" in self-mocking tone, and singing with a surprising passion that blew away the years, and underlined their vitality. The accompanying light show (and a more baffling black and white newsreel of The Grand National, filmed backwards and upside down!) merely augmented the overall impression. A night to remember; make no mistake, Mac is back!

306 THE BOO RADLEYS, ELECTRAFIXION, Coast, Reading University, Saturday 21 October 1995

First time back at Reading Uni for awhile, but I still found it OK; it's the Courage Brewery junction off the M4! Got there in good time to catch a bit of opener Coast's routine but okay actually chunky harmonic riffery; a bit of a poor man's 18 Wheeler actually, which was ironic as the "Wheeler"'s vocalist Sean Jackson was here handing out Coast flyers at the end of the set!

I popped into the crowd for Electrafixion's set; as anticipated, they were totally brilliant, playing dynamically, spookily and with oodles of class. Former Echo And The Bunnymen vocalist and current Electrafixion mainman Ian McCulloch, effectively the voice of my teenhood in his former incarnation, still knows how to make the old spine really tingle with his vocals, and the young back-up (apart, that is, from fellow old Bunny Will Sergeant, who's looking thicker-set and more Ramones-ish by the day) kicked up a perfect storm of stunning, heavy-on-the-guitars mighty mood music. My one man moshpit expanded, as I gave it loads for an utterly brilliant set!

After that, the very popular Boo Radleys were onto a bit of a loser for me. No issue with them really; they sounded their usual pop-psych fun selves of recent viewings and I watched the first half-dozen numbers of their swirly-delic pop numbers, but felt after that, that I'd become a victim of Boo-overexposure this year. Also, they seemed a little lightweight after the crashing brilliance of Mac's lot, although, again, no fault of theirs - McCulloch's a total idol of mine, and on tonight's form, ANYONE would have suffered in comparison. So I hung back during their set, then had a drink in the quiet bar, bumping into Jools, the former Marion and current Electrafixion bassist, for a chat in the process.

Undoubtedly, the Boo Radleys have this year enhanced their reputation with a brilliant LP of Summer pop, which encapsulates 1995's Summer holidays and which has made them both massively popular and ubiquitous in the process ("Wake Up Boo!" is everywhere!), but on this showing, Electrafixion won the day!